Tickets & tamales...

Immediately after the UA vs USC game on 12/5, in which the ‘Cats handily beat the Trojans, and made us bowl eligible, I went online to purchase 2 tickets to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on 12/30. You submit an application, enter your credit card number, but it doesn’t get charged until you receive a confirmation e-mail stating your application was accepted. On the following Tuesday afternoon, after not receiving said confirmation e-mail, I called the UA ticket office, before tickets went on sale to the general public at 5 pm that day, and asked if tickets had been issued to me. I was told no, so I purchased 2 tickets right then. I received the tickets yesterday…4 of them!! I called my credit card company to see if I had been charged twice…yup! So now I have 4 tickets to a sold-out game, but I only need 2. Information on the ticket face say you can go through Ticketmaster to sell your tickets...name a price! Yeah, well, I’m not in to make a profit, and I only want what I was charged (ticket price and shipping). What a hassle!

I attended Ailani’s Christmas program last night…5 year olds are a remarkable bunch, enthusiastic, smiling or some so scared they could only manage a blank stare, innocence in reindeer hats. They are not afraid to sing at the top of their lungs, they are having fun. They did a couple of international numbers, Kookaburra from Australia, Frere Jacque (Brother John), and of course, Feliz Navidad. I could not help but smile as their little voices raised the roof of the cafeteria much to the pleasure of mom’s, dad’s, nana’s and tata’s in the audience! Times such as these remind me that life is so precious, and once these moments are gone, they are gone forever, never to be replaced. Work, a clean house, shopping, school, nothing compares to the smile of a child as she says, “thank you for coming nana, did you hear me sing?” I sure did, sweetie, I sure did!

We make our annual tamales on Sunday, an all day deal. My sisters and I attempted this endeavor last year, by ourselves, as mom was recovering from knee replacement surgery, however, her presence was felt! She called us every hour to “see how we were doing”. Of course, we also called her for clarification on some instructions she had given…mom doesn’t measure, she just knows how much of an ingredient to add. I think she transposed a formula on the amount of red chili to use, hot vs mild, she said it was 3:1, however, the tamales were soooo spicy, I think it should have been 1:3 ratio! In any case, they were quite tasty, and the bonding time, jokes, stories, dancing to the music, is priceless!! Oh, and the boss lady will be present this year dishing out the orders!

Talk soon…